Politics

Kick to touch: Paul Mashatile goes generic, faced with questions on key issues in Parliament

9 May 2025

Deputy President Paul Mashatile faced questions in Parliament on Thursday about some of SA’s most pressing issues — dysfunctional municipalities, the withdrawal of US funding for HIV/Aids programmes, and gender-based violence. His answers failed to inspire confidence.

What is the government doing to fix South Africa’s (SA’s) most dysfunctional municipalities? What progress has the South African National Aids Council (SANAC) made with plugging the gap in funding, following the suspension of the US President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar) funds? How is the government urgently addressing the persistent scourge of gender-based violence (GBV) in the country?

These were some of the questions put to Deputy President Paul Mashatile by MPs during a Q&A session in the House on Thursday — and they’re not trivial ones. But Mashatile repeatedly responded by suggesting the government is on top of the challenges, which would inspire confidence if he offered any substantive details.

Dysfunctional municipalities

ANC MP Mdumiseni Ntuli’s question about the challenges in local municipalities got the deputy president enthused about the work of the Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC), established by Cabinet in September 2024, to deal with dysfunctional municipalities.

He said the IMC, chaired by Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) Minister Velenkosini Hlabisa, would further prioritise interventions focusing on 10 municipalities deemed most distressed by the Presidency.

Read more: ‘Time to pay up,’ Cogta Minister Hlabisa tells municipalities as government reviews funding models

“These include the Enoch Mgijima, Maluti-a-Phofung, Mafube, Kopanong, Emfuleni, uMzinyathi, Thabazimbi, Thembelihle, Ditsobotla, and Mamusa local municipalities. Already, eight of the 10 identified municipalities have held meetings with the technical IMC and are currently developing their turnaround strategies,” he said.

In a follow-up question, Ntuli asked for timelines on the turn-around of the 10 municipalities, in light of the local government elections in 2026, and queried interventions happening at SA’s other dysfunctional municipalities (66 in total).

“The municipal support and intervention plans are basically meant to address all struggling municipalities — not only the 10. However, the Presidency decided that we must start with those 10; focus on those. But work is going to start on most of the municipalities,” he responded.

“Work is going to continue on the rest,” he said, referring to the other dysfunctional municipalities.

He said the government would ideally have liked to address these challenges before the 2026 local government elections, but “it may not be possible”.

DA MP Anna Maria van Zyl asked about what consequence management mechanisms are in place to ensure that officials, “especially those in pilot municipalities under Operation Vulindlela”, face accountability.

Read more: Government models 3.5% growth by 2029 as it launches 30 key reforms — here they are

“Our intervention will ensure that there are consequences where things are not changing… In some of the municipalities, it’s not the politicians that are creating problems, it’s actually the officials of the municipalities. So there will definitely be consequences where we can see that people are obviously transgressing,” he said.

Pepfar funding

When DA MP Dr Karl le Roux questioned Mashatile about the progress that SANAC — which he chairs — had made in finding alternative revenue sources to support HIV/Aids projects impacted by the cancellation of funding from Pepfar, he assured the House that the government was “taking measures to prevent the negative effects that could result from the withdrawal” of Pefar.

In January, Donald Trump’s administration suspended billions of dollars of international aid, including for HIV-related programmes in SA.

The Health Department has calculated that it needs R2.82-billion to plug the gap in funding for the rest of the financial year, according to a Daily Maverick report. Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi has announced a plan to get an additional 1.1 million people on treatment by the end of 2025, but with no operational plan and no budget.

Read more: US funding reductions leave South Africa’s vulnerable populations at risk of HIV surge

Mashatile said on Thursday that the government “has a contingency plan to address the gaps” in funding to “sustain the delivery of health services”. But said talks between Motsoaledi and the National Treasury “to discuss the possibility of funding these gaps from the fiscus” were still ongoing.

He added that the SANAC had approached the National Lotteries Commission for additional funding.

Read more: Ramaphosa stands firm on Lotteries probe as ex-NLC boss launches bid to halt ‘fishing expedition’

“The National Lotteries Commission has submitted a funding application… which is being considered under its discretionary emergency funding,” he said.

The Health Department has been slow in approaching the National Treasury with a request for emergency funds. In order to finance some of the health services that have been defunded by the US, the Health Department could have secured emergency funding from the National Treasury, in terms of Section 16 of the Public Finance Management Act, but this hadn’t happened as of mid-April, GroundUp reported.

“Honourable deputy president, I hope that you understand that there is grave concern by people living with HIV and with civil society organisations that, more than three months after the funding from Pepfar through USAID was abruptly stopped, it appears that there’s been no urgency shown from the South African National Aids Council — which you chair — neither by the National Department of Health, to find funding and to mitigate the damage of these funding cuts,” said Le Roux.

He further asked Mashatile why emergency funding was only applied for from the National Treasury at the end of April, and when he expected this funding to be dispersed.

Mashatile didn’t answer the question directly. Instead, he reiterated much of his previous answer. However, he admitted: “We didn’t respond immediately, but we had to weigh the situation.”

GBV measures

In response to a question from MK MP Dr John Hlophe on the delays in investigations into the rape of a seven-year-old girl from Matatiele, Eastern Cape, Mashatile said the government “remained quite concerned about the prevalence of sexual abuse amongst young children in our country”.

“The painful case of allegations of sexual abuse of the seven-year-old child in the area of Matatiele in the Eastern Cape province, and other separate cases of sexual assault of minors are currently being investigated by the South African Police Services (SAPS). According to the reports that we have received from SAPS, investigations are still underway in this case in particular,” he said.

“According to the SAPS, approximately 30 statements have been taken to date, mainly from the staff of the school in question, medical personnel who examined the victim, the children who were with the victim, and family members,” he added.

Read more: ‘Cwecwe’ rape case — ‘complex’ investigation could have been elevated to senior cops sooner, says Mchunu

ActionSA MP Athol Trollip asked whether the deputy president — as the chairperson of the Justice, Crime Prevention and Security (JCPS) Cabinet committee — was concerned that the wheels of justice in gender-based violence cases were grinding so slowly.

“Indeed, this is a matter that preoccupies us in the JCPS… We are doing everything we can to ensure that we can speed up these cases. So it’s not like we are disinterested,” he responded.

Concluding the session, Bosa MP Mmusi Maimane asked Mashatile if he agreed with him that the National Sex Offenders Register should be made public — given the scourge of GBV in schools. Last month, Minister of Basic Education Siviwe Gwarube said in a parliamentary reply that only 19% of teachers have been vetted against the register as of 31 March.

“The minister of justice actually indicated to us recently… that she is looking at this register with the view of making it public. I’m sure she’s busy with that,” he said, adding that he agreed that those who are employed in schools should be vetted against it.

“It is definitely something we will look into,” he said. DM

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Dysfunctional municipalities

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